Saturday, March 15, 2008

Marbled Beetroot Eggs

Our Easter chick and a beautiful marbled beetroot egg.

Remember these gorgeous pickled red beet eggs from last year? Yes, that lovely photo that won the award for originality in April 2007's DMBLGIT contest. Well, I was thinking about making them again this year. But then few months ago I saw an article about the Chinese marbled tea eggs and then it suddenly dawned upon me that I could use that Chinese tea egg marbling technique to dye my beetroot eggs.

And so I did. And boy, it worked! As the eggs are 'soaked' in beetroot juice for an hour only, the eggs (unfortunately) don't really pick up much of the beet flavour.

Remember to make these just a few hours before you want to serve them - once you take them out of the beet juice and peel them, the colour will fade after a few hours. Leave them for too long in the beet juice, and they'll be just purple (nothing wrong with that, of course, but they're not marbled beetroot eggs then).

Marbled Beetroot Eggs

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Boil the eggs using your preferred technique (I simply bring my eggs to room temperature, then boil them for 7 minutes; but you can follow Alanna's or Kalyn's or Elise's or Thredahlia's instructions instead).Cool under a running cold water for a few minutes, then drain.Tap gently on a wooden cutting board to break the egg shell (I tried to roll first, but that breaks the shell too much). Do not peel!!!Place the eggs in a bowl, fitting them snugly next to each other. Pour over enough beet juice to cover, then sprinkle with some salt to season the beet juice.Cover and place in the fridge for an hour or two. Leaving them too long will result in simply red beetroot eggs.Drain the beetroot juice and discard.Carefully peel the eggs to reveal the gorgeously marbled beet eggs.Enjoy! (We simply ate them with some mayonnaise).

Ooooh My Yumminessss! So beautiful and Mommy Hen looked surprised too! Who could have thought of that? Brilliant! Beetroot is one of my fav vegetable... from raw to stir-fry. Now, I can have fun of staining egg and also my hands!

2ndly... I finally marbled some eggs with raw beetroot juice, cooked beetroot juice aaaand... Red Pitaya juice! Problems are the eggs don't have that sharp crackles like in Chinese Tea Eggs bcos in this case, the eggs were submerged for long hours. I tried to do that with the boiled beetroot liquid but... my 2 year old son just can't wait to eat them! So, I managed to save few for photo. Still, I can't get as nice beetroot color like yours... :'-(

Anyway, will try to them better... next opportunity arises..LOL.

I still have a packet of ready-made spice mix for Chinese Tea eggs. It's easy to buy them over here.